BlueHair: Interaction & Product Design

Category: Interaction Design

  • ipNext: Usability testing and redesign of an office phone

    ipNext_thumb

    Relevant Keywords:

    Telecommunications, office environment, user research, usability testing, icon validity testing, redesign, office telephone

    Design Goal:

    The goal of this project was to evaluate the usability of the Alcatel-Lucent IP Touch 4018 office phone and to propose a re-design of the phone according to the findings of the performed tests. The team consisted of 6 Design for Interaction master students of the TU Delft working directly for Alcatel-Lucent, a global telecommunications corporation.

    Project duration and team:

    225 hours, 6 interaction designers (David Güiza Caicedo, Tine Lavrysen, Amine Rhord, Meike Mak, Steven Fokkinga, Marjolein Hartog)

    Methods Used:

    • Product analysis in terms of aesthetics and functionality
    • Online user survey & interviews with experienced users to understand how they perceived the current phone.
    • Usability tests of the current phone with novice and experienced users.
    • Online icon validity test performed with an international sample of people.
    • Interaction prototyping to assess the new interaction model proposed with the redesigned phone.

    (more…)

  • Virtual goals: introducing new technology into the game of football

    For our Interactive Technology Design (ITD) course as part of my Design for Interaction master (TU Delft), we were asked to work on introducing interactive technology into the Cruyff Courts (free access outdoor football fields throughout the Netherlands) so that we could enhance their playability and attractiveness, with an specific emphasis on integrating more girls into the fields, as it was found that they were not making much use of the courts even though they like the game and girl-football is on the rise.

    We came up with the concept of “Virtual Goals”, which consists of replacing the normal goals and nets we have today by two large surface areas on each side of the field, in which different types of goals will be displayed according to (more…)

  • Beerbuddies: Using the personality of cartoon characters to define people’s personalities

    As a part of my Design for Interaction Master’s degree, I took part of a project called Exploring Interactions, for which I was trying to empower bartenders against unwanted behaviour in their bars.

    As a field research, I organized some group interviews with local bartenders and made use of some generative methods (such as collage making) in order to gain more information regarding their context and the interactions involved in their job, specially those regarding the customers and more specifically those involving customers showing some sort of unwanted behaviour. After thorough analysis and fiddling with different ideas, the Beerbuddies were born.

    The BeerBuddies are meant as a tool to reflect the personality and mood of bar-goers through the use of beer coasters with cartoon characters on them. (more…)

  • BeerBuddies: Empowering bartenders against unwanted behaviour

    Discover the BeerBuddies

    Relevant Keywords:

    Work, Leisure, Horeca (Hotels, restaurants, cafes), interaction, evident, explorative, involved, dominant, submissive

    Design Goal:

    To empower bartenders against unwanted behavior. The project was performed for the “Exploring Interactions” course, as part of the Design for Interaction Master of Science at the Delft University of Technology.

    Project duration:

    225 hours

    Methods Used:

    • Context mapping research through group interviews and generative methods (such as collage making) with local bartenders to gain rich visual and contextual information from them (field research).
    • Online survey to assess how people perceive the personalities of cartoon characters in terms of dominance and friendliness.

    (more…)

  • Baaramee: Interacting with a 3D island in Dubai

    Baaramee_thumb

    Relevant Keywords:3Dsolutions_logoThe_world_Dubai

    Graphical user interface, 3D environment, single point touchscreen, communication & marketing

    Design Goal:

    For the marketing and communication efforts of Baaramee, one of the islands of The World project in Dubai, an interactive 3D environment was conceived to allow possible investors and buyers to visualize and interact with the project. I was asked to develop a graphical user interface with which users could interact with the system through a touchscreen interface.

    Project duration:

    100 hours

    Methods used:

    • System flowcharts to communicate with programmers
    • Interactive concept presentation to communicate with programmers and management

    (more…)

  • Bill Buxton: Product design by sketching user experience

    I assume that everybody at the TU Delft heard from the presentation that Bill Baxton (Principal researcher Microsoft – http://www.billbuxton.com) has done on monday (nov 19) at the Industrial Design faculty, entitled “Product Design by sketching user experience”.

    For those of you who missed this very interesting lecture, I recorded it and placed it on the internet for you guys to watch. Video quality is not optimal, but it’s more about the story being told than anything else, so for that goal it’s good enough.

    Click on the READ MORE link beneath to  see the video. (more…)

  • 3D capacity – Flash based project management system

    This is a project management system that I put in place for 3D capacity‘s website. It is made in flash supported by xml files containing the project data. With it, it was possible to keep all the relevant information (delivery dates, contacts, file folders and communication) in a single place for both 3D capacity staff, as well as for the clients.

    By clicking on the screen-shots below you can see a demo of how it works (except for the possibility to save data which is not supported).

    (more…)

  • Assesment of existing tools for the measurement of emotions and their application in consumer products research

    A while back, and as part of my bachelor for Industrial Design Engineering at the TU Delft, we performed a research project in which we took a deeper look into the world of measuring emotional responses, and reported our proceedings and findings in a scientific paper. We also performed a field test with two of the most promising tools that we identified in order to have a better understanding of how they work and how they could be improved. These tools are PrEmo (developed at the TU Delft) and the Geneva Emotions Wheel (developed by the Geneva Emotion Research Group)

    If you are interested in this field I highly recommend you take a look at it.

    Here’s the abstract:

    “This paper introduces the subject of emotions in consumer products research; what are they, how to define them and most importantly, how to quantify and qualify them. A brief background research is made to clarify the concepts involved and to identify existing tools to measure emotions. Furthermore, a small field research was performed to test the validity that two of the most promising tools have on the field of consumer products research.”

    To download a PDF version of the study’s report or the poster, click in the links bellow.

    LINK 1: Assessment of existing tools for the measurement of emotions (PDF)

    LINK 2: Poster (PDF)

  • Muse – an MP3 player with an e-ink/touch based interface

    Muse 2As part of a design exercise at the TU Delft we were given the task to design a logo and an interface based entirely on typography for an MP3 player. The player was in the shape of a cylinder and would use e-ink and a touch sensitive surface as a use interface.

    By clicking the image below, you can open an interactive model which I made in flash, to illustrate how the interface looked and worked.

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    Muse